


Snape

by Iolaire02



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Past Abuse, NOTHING IS GRAPHIC, Severus Snape-centric, Snape Has Low Self-Esteem, at all, except for his self-hatred, like he really doesn't like himself, overuse of the word selfish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:22:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21772894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iolaire02/pseuds/Iolaire02
Summary: Severus Snape has no hope for humanity, least of all his own.
Kudos: 19





	Snape

He looks down his crooked nose at him, and disgust clenches around his stomach. The boy is supposed to be _his_ son, not that wretch’s. He recognizes the despair that settles in his bones. It is the same as when he found Lily, lifeless on the ground, and held her in his arms for the last time.

He is not a good man.

A good man would forgive and forget. A good man wouldn’t hold grudges. A good man wouldn’t judge a child for the sins of the father.

He is many things, but good is not one of them.

He is smart and sly. He knows how to play sides, how to convince people of his loyalties. He knows how to be selfish. This is something that is engraved in his bones; it is a family trait - his mother ran away from home and married a Muggle out of selfishness. His father drank and wasted money and hurt out of selfishness.

He is no better than his parents, for he allows his bitterness to overtake him. He allows his preconceptions to rule his emotions. He dreams of a lost past, wishes for the impossible, ponders what-ifs. 

He saves the boy again and again and again because he owes a debt. Saving the boy saves his life; this is what he tells himself in the dead of night. It is only behind the shields of his own mind that he dares admit that he saves the boy because he has a selfish desire for forgiveness.

Everything about him is selfish. Even his death is selfish - he is tired of living with guilt and sorrow and pain. He’s tired of the lies and sharps smiles and paper-thin masks. He’s tired, and death seems peaceful.

Death is the ultimate selfishness, when it is wished for; that is what someone told him once. But he can’t bring himself to care. He will live his last moments as he has lived his entire life: in selfishness.

The memories are not a gift; they are a selfish satisfaction, they are an unburdening, a _here take these I don’t want them anymore_ kind of selfish gift.

The eyes are a selfish request. He hates the face they’re in, but it’s blurred enough that the eyes are the only things that matter for once. They are lost hopes and broken dreams and shattered desires, and like anyone else, he cannot help but stare at untouchable stars.

He is selfish; he is not a hero because heroes aren’t real. They’re stories about people who make mistakes and learn from them, they’re stories about people who make mistakes and grow from them, who don’t make them again. That’s not real life, he knows.

Real life is selfish and cold. It is a place where heroes are a lie because heroes aren’t supposed to be selfish. If he has learned anything at all during his life, it is that everyone is selfish.

Even flowers are selfish, though the only flower that matters was the one that broke his heart as she lay strewn across the floor. The only flower that matters is the one that left him.

He has learned that there is no such thing as heroes. There are only humans, and humans are broken, fallible, selfish creatures. He is selfish, and so he is human. Of this, he is certain.

And yet, after his death, this selfish, broken _human_ is lauded as a hero.

  
  



End file.
